Page 4988 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
the budget, and I have yet to hear any good argument why any one area should be exempted from that process. So, the question before us all at this stage, as governments and potential governments, is to consider what we will do about reducing education expenditure and making it more efficient.
There is no doubt in my mind, Mr Speaker, that there are very serious inefficiencies remaining in the administration of all sectors of the ACT public sector and, in particular, I think education cannot be exempted from that statement. I believe, Mr Speaker, that the question of rationalisation of school campuses is one which will not go away. Successive governments of different persuasions have closed schools in recent years. The Labor Government, federally, has closed more schools, ironically, for all the hue and cry, than has the Alliance Government in recent times.
We have to face the question of how we are going to consider the rational provision of resources, given the constraints of a policy which appears to say that we are not going in any way to touch school communities where they prefer to leave their schools intact, and that, of course, accounts for almost every school community in the Territory, government and non-government.
I heard the Minister say only a little while ago that he was very pleased to be continuing with the process of rationalisation of TAFE campuses. Although there are differences between TAFE campuses and primary and secondary schools, the issue remains. One has to provide services, not buildings; and services come first. Services are going to be more and more tightly pressed if we are unable to address the question of how we deal with the provision of services from particular buildings.
So, I ask in this debate, Mr Speaker, to hear from the Government some indication of their philosophy with respect to the future of education. I must say that I have not heard much of it in recent months. Perhaps we have had other things on our minds. I have not heard the Minister state at any stage how he approaches the question of a philosophical underpinning to education in the Territory, particularly primary and secondary education.
It is easy to say, "We are opposed to the things the Alliance Government did. We are opposed to school closures and we are opposed to cuts and things of that kind". But that is not good enough. There needs to be a philosophical question answered about how you deal with competing interests and needs in education, while you deal at the same time with reducing the expenditure base. Perhaps those sorts of questions can be answered, if not tonight, then in future debates on education.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .